‘Syria forces kill militants, seize Israeli-made arms’

The Syrian Army has reportedly killed several foreign-sponsored militants, and confiscated a large cache of Israeli-made weapons from terrorists attempting to cross into Syria from Jordan.
Syrian government forces launched attacks against militants inside and outside the western cities of Idlib and Hama on Sunday and killed a large number of them, the official SANA news agency reported.
The forces also rendered ineffective large supplies of arms, ammunition, and explosives, held by the militants in their hideouts. In addition, the government forces destroyed four locally-made missile launchers.
Also on Sunday, a unit of the Syrian armed forces and border guards ambushed terrorists attempting to cross into Syria from Jordan near the al-Mataeieh village in the Daraa countryside, and confiscated Israeli-made weapons.
''The seized weapons included Israeli-made Lau missiles, along with various other weapons, munitions, and modern communication devices,” a Syrian official said.
The official added that many foreign terrorists were killed and injured during the raid.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants fighting the Syrian government are foreign nationals.
Several international human rights organizations have accused foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.
Earlier in the day, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi unveiled a new initiative to end the crisis.
Brahimi said that the new plan could find support from world powers, including key Syria ally, Russia.
The veteran Algerian diplomat, however, did not elaborate fully on his proposal, but said he had discussed it with Russia and Syria, and that it was a political solution based on the Geneva Declaration adopted in June.
GJH/HN